The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for transporting groups of packages from winding stations of a textile machine or the like to a location for further handling or processing.
The winding stations of certain textile machines can be operated to build cross-wound packages and these cross-wound packages are transported to locations for further handling or processing, such as yarn twisting or doubling machines which combine yarn from a pair of cross-wound packages. If a pair of the cross-wound packages are to be combined at a doubling machine, it is advantageous if the cross-wound package supplying the cover yarn has a greater amount of yarn than the other cross-wound package of the pair, which supplies the core yarn. To this end, one economical configuration of the winding stations for producing the cross-wound packages is a configuration in which the individual winding stations alternately produce cross-wound packages of different lengths or in which certain winding stations produce packages of one length while other winding stations produce packages of a different length.
To expedite the transport and handling of the cross-wound packages for twisting or doubling, it is advantageous to segregate and transport the packages in separate pairs, each including one package having one length of yarn wound thereon and the other package having another length of yarn wound thereon.